DRAGON'S BLOOD 237 



made the faint green tracery of the opening leaves 

 all show in a mist of soft moonlight. As I reached 

 the centre of the lake, from both shores a veery 

 chorus began. The hermit thrush will not sing after 

 eight, but the veery sings well into the dark, if only 

 the moon will shine. That night, as from the hidden 

 springs of the lake the heart-blood of the hills pulsed 

 against my tired body, the veery songs drifted across 

 the water, all woven with moonshine and fragrance, 

 until it seemed as if the moonlight and the perfume, 

 the coolness and the song were all one. 



Some April evening between cherry-blow and 

 apple-blossom the wood thrush comes back. I first 

 hear his organ-notes from the beech tree at the foot 

 of Violet Hill. Down from my house beside the 

 white oak I make haste to meet him. In 1918, he 

 came to me on May 3; in 1917 on April 27; and in 

 1916 on April 30. He seems always glad to see me, 

 yet with certain reserves and withdrawings quite 

 different from the robins, who chirp unrestrainedly 

 at one's very feet. His well-fitting coat of wood- 

 brown and soft white, dusked and dotted with black, 

 accord with the natural dignity of the bird. It is 

 quite impossible to be reserved in a red waistcoat. 

 Some of my earliest and happiest bird-memories are 

 of this sweet singer. 



The wood thrush has a habit of marking his nest 

 with some patch or shred of white, perhaps so that 

 when he comes back from his twilight song he may 

 find it the more readily. Usually the mark is a bit 

 of paper, or a scrap of cloth, on which the nest is 



